Talk:Creative Assembly/Archives/2012

comment
"CA's community spokesperson, known as The Shogun, is widely despised within the Total War community. He has generally been completely unwilling to work with, or indeed listen to, the community on any issue".

As a member of the TW community for some 6 years and serving admin, I have to say this is complete fabrication. Davdehas12 11:54 AM 9 November 2006 EDST

As a member of the TW community for the same amount of time, as well as an active member of the modding community, I disagree with any notion that CA's customer and community support is anything other than atrocious.

Exceeds moronic diatribe levels

Closed

The last Paragraph
"CA unfortunately lacks in keeping up with expectations and announcements as is shown with the amount of new moddability with m2tw. Adding a script or two but mainly new graphics while not anything helpfull for modders to work on."

I have absloutly no idea what's written here... it looks like gibrish. AnoreX

It remains to be seen whether M2:TW will be more moddable than R:TW. CA claimed that R:TW would be "very" moddable; this turned out to be untrue. It wasn't even possible to modify models until a fan created tools with which to do so. There have been no major changes since Sega took over. BI was released after this time, and BI had no new modding tools. AFAIK, M2:TW uses the same .txt datafiles as RTW. And, lest we forget, a whopping amount of the important gameplay aspects are hardcoded, for no good reason.

pov moved from article
I have moved the following from the end of the article as being pov and not quite encyclopedic. Perhaps someone could re-write it? -- Mwanner | Talk 18:24, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Within sections of the gaming community, CA is reviled by fans for its absolute lack of participation with the community, as well as seeming reluctance to patch bugs out of games. For example, Rome: Total War underwent a rushed release, resulting in the initially shipped copies being significantly (though not overwhelmingly) bug-ridden. CA's first patch addressed none of these bugs, with its only effect being to change the unit statistics of the elephant units within the game. The second patch, 1.2, addressed most of the aforementioned bugs; however, it also introduced a game-breaking glitch, the infamous save/load bug. As a result of the save/load bug, loading a saved game would cause a reset of all AI priorities. Thus, upon ending one's first turn after loading a game, all AI opponents would lift all sieges and begin pursuing a new strategy. This severely retarded the growth of AI factions for anybody loading a game frequently. As turns naturally become longer in RTW, and because many are not willing to leave their computers on at all times, the save/load bug severely disrupted gameplay. This bug, as well as definitive proof of itrs presence, was rapidly presented to CA. However, CA refused to adknowledge the existence of the bug. First, CA attempted to pass it off as a "feature"; as if realizing the utter implausibility of such a thing, they soon dropped this stance, and simply began banning from their official forums any community member who became a vocal complainer about the bug. CA's official stance on the issue became that Activision would only fund two patches to R:TW; they did not address the fact that the first patch had been almost completely insignificant and effortless, and that the second had been bug-ridden.

CA did not fix the save/load bug until Barbarian Invasion, the expansion pack, was released. This patch, 1.3/1.4, incidentally introduced another glaring error, this being that phalanx vs. phalanx combat no longer functioned correctly.

In all, many have come to see CA as a company that does not much care about its customers. The AI of all games since Shogun: Total War have been extremely subpar, and CA has made no attempt to perfect many of the features within its games that do not function properly. Of course, CA's reluctance to patch severe problems in their games has also not earned them much in the way of good will. Even the patches that have been released have shown little effort involved; even a small amount of playtesting would have been more than enough to see many of the obvious bugs inherent in each patch, but CA seems unwilling to put forth even that small amount of effort for its customers.

CA's community spokesperson, known as The Shogun, is widely despised within the Total War community. He has generally been completely unwilling to work with, or indeed listen to, the community on any issue. Recently,this has been posted on several TW fourms, and been removed proably by a SP player who likes Shogun or a CA member.

-Ragnarok,Vandal Hordes

WP:VG assessment
Missing Content
 * Founders (Ansell only mentioned in lead, but not in History or anywhere. Why did he found this company, and what was his profession?)
 * Location, office setup, organization, and work culture
 * Other works beside video games (charity or community work for example)
 * Business interaction between the company and others (how was their relationship with EA during their time together, etc)

The article has presented an extensive detail of the company's product line, but has scant information regarding its physical being and chronology. Little is known of the company, only what products it has made. Hence, my opinion that the article should stay at C-class. Jappalang (talk) 01:08, 5 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I wasn't too bothered about promotion to B-class, it was the comments I was after. Location is mentioned in the second sentence of the lead, there shouldn't be any need to mention it further unless there's some major significance to the location. As for the others, any advice as to the best places to find this information? I'm sure its out there, but I've no idea where to look. And what do you mean by "office setup"? I presume not the arrangement of chairs in the conference room. -- Sabre (talk) 01:22, 5 November 2008 (UTC)


 * The above missing contents may or may not be major contents. Sometimes, location can be a notable feature of the company.  For example, if its location is at a central business hub, or the company is located at a town and is the major employer of the people there.  If it is a non-descript region, that can be pretty much discounted.  Office setup can be described as the structure of its office (again if notable).  The building might have notable features; perhaps, they have a motion capture studio, one of the largest recreation facilities in the region, or a video game arcade/testlab for observing the locals (employed as beta testers), etc.  If we talk about Google, we would talk about how their work place have specific relaxation areas (even customized work cubicles), canteens at regular intervals, etc.  Basically if the features are notable in the sense to the company's work or to the community, including them would help to flesh out and distinguish the company from the others.  Jappalang (talk) 01:34, 5 November 2008 (UTC)